


Frozen Heart

by Lynds



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Banished Loki (Marvel), Based on a Tumblr Post, Fluff and Angst, For Science!, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Frozen (2013), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Mutual Pining, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, POV Loki (Marvel), POV Tony Stark, Panic Attacks, Poor Loki (Marvel), Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Tony Needs a Hug, and due to panic, mostly accidental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 05:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18564727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynds/pseuds/Lynds
Summary: Loki's Jotun roots show themselves at the worst possible time - in the middle of Thor's coronation. Odin's last act before falling into the Odinsleep is to hurl Loki to Midgard, deactivating the Bifrost in the process. Panicking and alone, Loki hides in a mountain cave, his powers out of control.That's where Tony Stark finds him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [STARSdidathing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/STARSdidathing/gifts).



> I couldn't wait to share this prompt on Tumblr with the FrostIron Discord, and then STARS happened to it, and I just had to end up writing it myself as part of Camp NaNo! It's all written, but I like to edit as I'm going along, so I'm going to be updating every week. Thank you so much to Rabentochter for the beta <3 I hope you guys like it ^_^

Loki was still simmering when he walked out into the coronation crowd, his head held high, step sure and confident, nothing like the petulant rejection he felt inside. Thor could never know how his words hurt - how they always hurt. He’d be doing so well, and then _bang_ , Thor would say something like _that_.

 _Others just do tricks_ indeed. He’d like to see how the five idiots survived on their suicide missions without him and his tricks. Maybe next time he’d stay home. Maybe next time he’d refuse to accompany them.

Maybe next time they’d ask in the first place.

As he reached the dais, bowed to his father and stepped aside to stand with Mother, he knew it was all irrelevant. There would be no more spur of the moment trips to Nornheim, no glorious quests to a distant Vanir village to battle a dragon. Thor hadn’t accepted it himself, yet, but as King, even if only temporarily while Father slept, he would be tied to the palace.

Loki shifted imperceptibly under the weight of his helmet. The blasted thing was so _heavy_ , and his formal armour was so hot. Usually he could handle it, but he’d also had a migraine creeping up on him, the bright light reflecting off the gold piercing into his eyes and stabbing against his brain. His back ached. He took a deep breath and held it, tightening up sore muscles. 

Perhaps he was coming down with something. Just typical. Right when he was about to get front row tickets to Thor failing at something, he was going to get one of his hateful illnesses and be trapped in the healing wards for weeks on end.

Thor came in and Loki maintained his perfect posture, a nice counterpoint to his stupid brother’s showboating and arrogance. He saw his mother’s lips tighten in disapproval - yes, Thor was definitely going to fail at this. And for once Loki wouldn’t even have to _do_ anything to make his brother look like an oaf. Sure, he could have staged a disruption. He could even now trip Thor up on his own robes, make him a laughing stock. He’d even, for a short while after he found that pathway between the realms, considered letting the Jotnar into the palace. That would have been sure to show everyone how spoilt and overdramatic Thor was. But the first time he’d ventured through, he’d been attacked by a great beast of some sort and nearly lost an arm. By the time he’d recovered, he’d lost his nerve.

Thor knelt at the foot of the dais and grinned up at Father, completely oblivious to the irritation rolling off Father’s shoulders. Thor had never cared a whit what Father thought of him. That had always been Loki’s job. But then again, Loki had always been the one to attract Father’s disapproval. 

Loki cleared his throat, a wheezing breath rattling in his lungs and making that momentary panic flare when he couldn’t quite get enough oxygen. The air felt thick and overheated, and he closed his eyes, trying to gather his composure. 

Thor was repeating the oath after Father, and Loki slowly drew his breath in, trying to suppress the panic rising in his throat. His head ached so much, he could feel himself sweating, trembling under the weight of the armour, the world going red behind his closed eyelids…

He heard a gasp rippling out from the dais and struggled to hold in his nausea, to stay poised, but he was on his _knees_ , oh Norns, how embarrassing! What was wrong with him? He could hear his family calling his name, Thor would be furious, he would think it was a trick. His hands seemed to be burning against the usually cold stone floor, and he retched violently, bringing nothing up. _What was wrong with him?_

He pulled his helmet off and almost instantly groaned in relief as his skull stopped feeling like it was splitting in two. 

But then the screams started. He raised his head, where was the danger? Was mother protected?

There was ice across the floor, frost blossoming into strangely beautiful fractals and ferns and radiating out in a circle from… from him. The crowd were staring in horror at _him._

He glanced down at himself, at his hands - blue, with white raised lines, and “what trickery is this?” he asked, his voice hoarse. A small hysterical part of him laughed to hear his brother’s words, so oft used against Loki’s magic, from his own lips. “What… what’s happening?” he cried, turning imploringly to Mother and Father.

“A Frost Giant,” someone said from the crowd, a hushed voice. Then someone else said it, louder, and another and another, until the crowd rang out as one voice, “Frost Giant, disguised as the prince, kill it!”

Loki looked to Thor at once, terrified, reaching out. Thor flinched back, and then so did Loki to see his own black-clawed hands. “Mother? Father?” he said, his voice young and small.

“Kill it!” roared the crowd, and Thor turned to snarl our at them, fisting Mjolnir. Loki caught a flash of motion from the corner of his eyes and turning in instinctive defence, he threw his hand out. 

The crowd screamed and roared and weapons appeared in every hand. Because a ring of razor sharp ice spikes appeared around Loki at the arc of his hand.

He stumbled back, breathing fast, the air still hot and thick in his lungs. He stared at his hands in rising sickness. What had happened to him?! He’d never been any good at elemental magic, what _was_ this?

“Enough!” roared Father, the hilt of Gungnir thundering against the floor. The room stilled, and Loki turned to him in terror, because what if he was blamed for this? Father would be furious, he wouldn’t believe - 

“Loki, with me,” he said, his deep voice reverberating around the room with absolute authority.

“But sire, the Frost Giant—“

Odin roared at the guard, silencing him with his wordless fury. “Everyone, leave!” he shouted. “Out, now! Loki, with me.”

Loki followed without thought, his legs obeying his father’s command even as his mind screamed disorder and panic. He was still staring at the palms of his blue hands as he heard the door to Father’s office slam shut behind him. 

“Am I cursed?” he asked, his voice a croak. 

Father didn’t reply, pacing up and down, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “Father…” Loki started.

“You are not cursed, Loki.”

“Then what…”

“In the last days of the war with the Frost Giants, I came upon a temple. There I found a baby, a tiny one, just a runt. He had clearly been left to die for his small size.” Father sighed heavily and sat at last in his chair. “My hands were stained with the blood of hundreds, but when I picked you up--”

Loki’s ears filled with a high pitched ringing sound. It couldn’t be true, he couldn’t be… he couldn’t be one of them, he was too small, he was… he was _Aesir_. He started to breathe fast, his chest heaving, his head pounding once more. 

“Loki. Loki!”

His head snapped up. Father was standing close, his hand outstretched but not touching him. Not touching him, because he couldn’t. Why would he want to? “I’m… I’m the monster people tell their children about at night.”

“No, no--”

“Why did you take me?”

Odin closed his eye, pain lining his face. “I thought… I thought we could make peace, I thought--”

“So I am just another stolen relic?” His voice raised high at the end, childish and petulant and risible. 

“Loki--”

“And now… now I am to be paraded on the streets, a curiosity under guard every moment lest someone lose their head and destroy-- oh, Norns, Thor… Thor has sworn - did he know?”

“Loki…”

“Tell me!” Loki screamed, the pain in his heart making him almost double over. “Tell me who knew! Who has hated me from my infancy because they knew-- Mother! Was she--”

“We do not have time for this,” Odin snapped. “You will no longer be safe in Asgard, we must send you away--”

“No! You cannot send me back there, you cannot send me to Jotunheim, I will not--”

Odin roared at him, and it was so _normal_ that something which would usually set his heart beating in shame and panic and rejection was actually a sanctuary he clung to. “Be silent, boy,” Odin said. “Let me _think._ ” He pressed his hands to his head. “Somewhere they will not find you, yes… yes, it must be.”

He turned to him, drawing himself up to his full height. “I shall send you to Midgard. This is for your own safety. You must stay, until… until…”

“What? No! You cannot… Father, please, just take this skin from me! You did it once before, you turned me to Aesir once, please, I can keep it a secret, I’ll… I’ll go…” He breathed fast once more, because where would he go? It was no longer a secret, how could he… “I’ll tell them it was an illusion… to disrupt the ceremony.”

“I’m sorry, Loki.” Odin shook his head.

“No! No, Father… Allfather, please!”

Loki could feel the power gathering, pooling from the direction of the Bifrost towards Gungnir, and in his panic he threw out his hands in front of him. The last thing he saw before the stars warped in front of his eyes was his father falling to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's bored. Luckily there's some sort of weather disruption down in New Mexico, I wonder what that could be...?

Tony threw a handful of dried blueberries in his mouth and spun around on his chair, trying not to stave off the impending depression for just a little longer.  
Finishing a project was fantastic. Best feeling in the world. For like, five minutes? And then the boredom set in, and when the boredom set in, the depression was only a heartbeat behind. If Tony wasn’t actively _doing_ something, he was not a happy bunny.

Then again, when he was actively doing something, he got super anxious, because he hadn’t finished yet, and it didn’t count as an achievement unless he’d finished it. Fucking goblin brain.

“JARVIS, bring up the list of unfinished projects, would you?”

“Of course Sir,” said JARVIS briskly, a file opening on the holo-viewer. “There’s a set of body armour you started for SHIELD.”

“Eh, archive that. In fact, archive anything I started for those bastards, they lost their TV privileges when they injected me with chemicals without my consent and tasered a man with a heart condition.”

“Thank you, Sir.” JARVIS made several files disappear with an obnoxious trashing noise. Tony smirked. JARVIS pulled up another file. “There’s also a prosthesis for--”

Tony was already shaking his head. “Nah, I replaced it with something better, remember? That neural transmitter implant which connects to a prosthesis so the kid doesn’t have to get used to a new one every time they grow out of a leg? Archive that as well.”

There were only three projects left. Tony felt a hollow fear start up under his arc reactor and rubbed his solar plexus, biting his lip. How had he let it get this bad? Was he losing his creativity? Was he going to have to… god forbid, be _idle?_

Something bleeped and Tony jumped, springing to the readout in the corner of the room. Behind him, JARVIS closed the holo-viewer and brought up a map in response to Tony’s touch. “What’s going on here? Solar flares?”

“NASA hasn’t got any solar flares of this significance predicted for the next four weeks, sir.”

Tony frowned at the map, replaying the readings of the last five minutes, but his heart was jumping with glee. The endorphins played a refrain of _something new something new_ on his pulse and he grinned as he localised the readings to the New Mexico desert, not far from a little town called Puente Antigo. “Hey, JARV? Ready the mark XII, would you? I think we need a little break from the city.”

&&&

As the repulsors whined to slow his descent, Tony turned his head in all directions, gathering as much data as he could. It was obvious where the anomaly had been centred; a vast circle spread across the dirt, a little bit streaked to the south, as if a meteor had crashed at a steep angle. But the crater itself was like nothing he’d ever seen, a complex runic pattern burned into the ground and then overlayed with… “JARVIS, are those frost patterns?”

“Yes, Sir, the frost appears to have originated from the centre of the crater.” JARVIS marked the point on the heads-up display. “Perhaps you should talk to the people to the left of the crater, judging by the equipment they’re getting out of their van they seem to be conducting some sort of research on the crater.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “I’m always ready to talk science to new people,” he said, wheeling low and banking hard. “Except anti-vaxxers, if I wanted to be burned as a witch I’d have invented time travel by now.”

He landed gently and flipped his faceplate up. One of the women already had her phone out to video him, quietly muttering _“holy shit, holy shit, it’s Tony freaking Stark,”_ under her breath. The other woman was tugging at her hair and having a nerdgasm at the patterns branded into the earth, and Tony knew immediately he was going to get along great with these girls. The older guy, maybe not. He looked at Tony as if he was a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of all of them, which, while probably _true_ , he didn’t need to be quite so obvious about it. Rude.

“Room for a little one?” Tony asked with his favourite media smile.

“Holy shit holy shit it’s _Tony freaking Stark!”_

“Yeah, hi,” he said, stepping out of the suit and waving at the girl in the glasses. 

The other girl looked up at last, big brown eyes wide, as if she’d genuinely missed the noise of his approach. “Huh? Where did you come from?”

He jerked his thumb behind himself at the suit. “New York.”

She stared. “Holy shit, Tony Stark.”

“Yeah. Hope you don’t mind me butting in.”

She looked slightly pained. “Uh. Yeah, sure.”

“I mean, you’re on lead, of course,” he added quickly and watched her face light up again. “First come, first served.”

“Oh my God, really? I mean, you’re not gonna just… call seniority?” she said.

“I can’t call seniority, I don’t know you,” he shrugged.

“Oh, Dr Jane Foster, astrophysicist. This is Dr Erik Selvig, also astrophysics, and my assistant Darcy Lewis.”

“‘Sup,” said Darcy, apparently over her star-struck moment.

“Tony Stark,” he said again, pointing to himself. “Not an astrophysicist, so you definitely take seniority. What are we looking at?”

She turned back to the crater, her focus sharpening instantly. “I’ve been working on the spontaneous formation of Einstein-Rosen bridges for the last three years of my life - to the detriment of my entire career. The readings we picked up from here were literally off the chart, the frequencies alone were exactly the same as those the Fermi picks up from distant pulsars! But then we got here fifteen minutes ago, and it got weird.” 

Tony followed her over to a rickety machine and looked at the readout over her shoulder. The screen flickered and she smacked it, hard. Tony winced and put his twitchy fingers behind his back. _Not my machine, not my machine, no touchy!_

Jane made a triumphant noise and pointed to the values as she scrolled up. “My array system here is picking up trace gamma radiation congruent with the kind of energy output of an atomic bomb, but it seems to have been entirely concentrated in this one small area, with no ill effects beyond the scorching of the soil here. And these symbols!” She turned, her hair flaring out and hitting herself in the face. “I mean, I’m loath to call them symbols, because that implies some sort of meaning, and obviously we have to be careful not to anthropomorphise, but it’s hard to deny, they look a hell of a lot like writing, don’t they?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and there was the _actual alien_ , too?”

Tony turned towards her. “There was an alien?”

“Supposed alien,” Erik said, helping Jane with another machine that looked like it’d fall apart in a stiff breeze. These guys needed some engineering lessons, that was for sure. “I’d wager he was one of those crop circle guys, just… diversifying or something.”

“He was blue, Erik,” Darcy insisted. “And he had horns!”

“Amazing what they can do with prosthetics and makeup these days,” Erik shrugged. 

“Yeah, but Erik,” Darcy whined. “He froze the ground!”

Erik shook his head, but the machine slipped and Jane yelped, and his attention shifted off them. “He froze the ground?” Tony asked, turning towards Darcy.

“Yeah, dude, like he was in the middle of the crater, having some sort of a panic attack or something. Jane ran towards him asking if he’d seen what caused the anomaly, because she’s a total dumbass and didn’t, like, _notice_ he was blue or something? I dunno. Anyway, he looked at her like she was some sort of dangerous creature, held his hand out and frosted up half the crater, and then disappeared.” She shrugged. “I got a photo, but it’s really blurry, I won’t even bother putting it on Facebook.”

“Do you mind sending it to me anyway?” he asked. “I can see if JARVIS can clear it up a bit.”

“Yeah, let’s do that CSI bullshit,” she said, holding out her phone to him. 

He came around beside her instead of taking it, putting his shades on and activating JARVIS in the lenses. “Oh, yeah, that’s a shitty photo.”

“I know, right?” she said cheerfully.

The snap was shaky and grainy, like she’d pressed the button before she’d got the phone in place. JARVIS reduced the noise and adjusted for motion, and slowly a clearer version began to resolve itself in Tony’s display. “Woah,” he muttered.

“What? What?”

“JARVIS, bluetooth it to her.”

“Holy shit, I’m gonna need your image software,” she yelped as the photo appeared on her screen.

The man - or whatever he was - had his hands thrown out in front of him. He was crouched over, like he’d just picked himself up off the ground, or like he’d been startled, and silvery threads poured from his blue fingers. His face was mostly hidden, but Tony could make out a snarl. 

“He was just standing up when we arrived,” Darcy said, zooming into the cleaned-up photo. “Jane started yelling at him, saying he should get out of there, he was messing up the data, and he turned around - that’s when we saw he was all blue, with those horns. He freaked out, iced the place up and disappeared. Pooff! Just like that.”

Tony frowned down at the phone, and then looked out at the markings on the desert floor. “JARVIS, can you send the footage we got from the air off to Dr Foster here? And maybe shift the markings to account for the trajectory, if we get rid of the parallax error we might be able to get some information from the markings.”

“Do you think he’s really an alien?” Darcy asked, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Damn, that would be so fucking funny, you know, go work for a serious scientist and end up caught up in some conspiracy theory.”

“Could be,” Tony hedged. “I mean, just because we haven’t seen any evidence of aliens yet doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But it’s a long shot, so yeah. We should probably wait until we have more information.”

“Boring,” she said, scrunching her nose up and poking at the screen again. “I’m calling aliens.”

A cold wind blew across both of them suddenly, and Tony shivered. “What the hell?” Tony murmured. “JARVIS, is there a storm forecast?”

“All meteorological data up until the last hour have shown between an eighty to ninety percent chance of clear skies, no disrupted weather at all. However approximately fifteen minutes ago a low pressure area appeared localised to Mount Nahokos, eight miles north of here.”

Tony frowned as the satellite imagery appeared on his sunglasses display. “Is that snow?”

“Yes, Sir. The meteorological anomaly appears to be growing, causing exponentially increasing snowfall. The intensity appears to be decreasing in the inverse square law with the distance from the epicentre.”

“You had me at inverse square law,” Tony said. “Hey, Doctors, I’m gonna go find out what’s causing snow in a New Mexico summer, I’ve sent you my phone number, come play science with me, yeah?”

Jane stood up and tucked some hair behind her ear as he stepped into the suit. “Wait, are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he said, tapping his arc reactor. “And I know a bit about those bitches. I’ll send a jet for you, we’ll have fun.”

The face plate closed on him and he sighed, closing his eyes. “Too clingy?” he asked.

“They should be honoured, Sir.”

“Yeah,” he said, straightening up a little. “Yeah, damn straight. Or something. OK, let’s go find the abominable snowman.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm deeply saddened by the fact that there's a space telescope/satellite called Odin, but it gathers data I couldn't really fit into the narrative! I had to use the Fermi instead - but if anyone DOES use the Odin as a plot point now please let me know, I want to nerd out!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a panic attack at the top of a mountain, and meets a man in a metal suit

Loki clenched and unclenched his fists, pacing up and down. He knew it must look crazy, incredibly undignified, but he couldn’t find the strength to stop, to calm down! He wrung his hands together, rubbing his thumb into the palm of his left hand, then winced. The long, curved black thumbnail, it was more of a claw, really, dug into his palm.

He held his hands up almost to face level, watching them shake. The more he watched them, the more they shook, out of his control, terrifying appendages that no longer belonged to him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear or see or think beyond the panic whirling in his mind.

“OK, stand down, Blueberry,” a loud, metallic voice rang through the mountain cave. 

Loki whirled around, his heart thundering in his chest, his breath coming short and sharp. His vision was starting to spark black spots in the periphery, and he needed to _get control_ of himself before he put himself in more danger, before he could find a way to get rid of this skin, bring him back to himself.

A metal humanoid stood at the entrance to the cave, arms outstretched towards him with glowing palms. The red and gold reminded him of Thor, and his panic kicked up another notch - what if his brother had found some way to find him before he could fix this mess? Thor would kill him without hesitation if he found him looking like this, and he couldn’t… he couldn’t bear it, he wouldn’t even fight back, he couldn’t…

“Hey, hey, OK… uh, it’s OK, just breathe with me now. Hey! Yeah, sorry I don’t know what to call you, but could you keep your eyes on me, yeah? Look, I’m gonna make my repulsors glow, I want you to try and breathe along with them. In for three, that’s great, well done. Now out for five, good. And again, in for three, out for five. Now let’s try a bit more, in for four, out for six, OK? You’re doing fantastic.”

“Do not patronise me,” he snarled, but it came out as a thin, strangled plea. 

“I’m not,” the metal man said. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s the right thing? My gir-- uh, my ex? My CEO. I dunno what she is now… my Pepper? She gets like that sometimes. JARVIS does that for her when she needs it.”

The faceplate retracted into the helmet, revealing a concerned face, neatly trimmed goatee and brown eyes that Loki had to tear his gaze away from. “Hey,” said the man. “I’m Tony Stark. Uh. Sorry I came in here guns blazing, I thought you were doing that on purpose.”

“Doing what?” Loki frowned.

Tony gestured around them, and Loki stared. The cave he’d taken shelter in was now lined in a thick layer of ice, frost patterns like ferns made of geometrical shapes fractalling across the walls. “What…” he whispered. “I did this?”

“Uh, yeah, you kinda did a bit more than just this.” He jerked his thumb to the entrance of the cave, and Loki took shaky steps towards it, then gasped.

The world outside was white where it had once been red and brown, sand and dry dust coated in a thick layer of snow. As far as he could see the wind whirled, picking up gusts of fine snowflakes and dusting them into peaks and dunes. The brightness of it dazzled him, and he felt hollow, empty with despair.

“Woah, woah, you’re OK, hold on.” The metal man, Stark, caught his elbow and struggled to hold him upright as his knees buckled under him. “Ooh, that’s interesting. More icing problems, huh, JARVIS?”

Loki got a hold of himself and leaned against the wall, straightening his body and tugging himself from the man’s grip. “I am not Jarvis.”

“Huh? Oh, no, not you, I was talking to…” he tapped the side of his head, which did nothing to reassure Loki, then continued to look at his hands. The hands which, when Loki looked properly, he realised were covered in frost patterns, streaking outwards away from the point where Stark had grabbed him. 

Stark held his hands up to the light and turned them this way and that. “Look at that, JARV, did you get readings on what temperature that was? That’s incredible, to pull the heat energy from his surroundings like that, and-- what? Oh. Sorry.” He looked up at Loki and cleared his throat. “Yeah, not very good manners, my bad. Look, you can’t stay out here. Or well, you _can_ , but if you do, there’ll be someone else along soon enough to yell at you for… icing the place up.” He waved a hand at the white landscape. “Can I interest you in a bit of research? You know, place to stay, food to eat, science to… science.”

Loki frowned at him, his mind caught between confusion and exhaustion. He’d been on the very edge of panic, tipping one way and then the other, and every joint and muscle shook from trying so hard to hold himself under control. And failing, he reminded himself with a glance out at the snowfield. No wonder Father had sent him so far from home.

But he wasn’t his father, was he? Loki was an orphaned Frost Giant, a runt, obviously. A stray taken in by a conqueror seeking to seal his control of a defeated realm. He would be more of a liability than anything, now that his disguise was broken. He was lucky he’d been exiled, rather than imprisoned. He would have been lucky to get as far as the prison cells - Asgard would have seen him dead before he’d left the Allfather’s office.

For the first time since his Jotun skin had shown itself, he felt cold, all the way to the marrow of his bones. He thought of the Allfather falling just as he cast Loki away. He’d been putting off the Odinsleep for so long, who knew how the stress Loki had caused would harm him? Loki swallowed and closed his eyes.

“You would… you would give me sanctuary? In exchange for…”

“Oh, you know, just a couple of experiments, we can find out the limits of your powers, see what it all looks like in a CAT scanner, or what kind of fields you generate. You’re an alien, right? I mean, you’re not from this planet - honestly, even if you are, you’re something unique on earth.”

Loki felt his chest ice over to match the ice he’d spread across this world. He stared down at his own hands. This was what he had come to. He had thought he was a prince, but that had been a lie - it was fitting that he should sell this freakish body of his, this alien, as Stark had called it, just for food and drink. What more was he worth now?

“I am yours to command,” he said, his voice echoing around his hollow chest.

“What - really? Hey, awesome! Look, I’ll show you everything you need to know about life among the earthlings, you’ll see. You’ve come to the right place, we’ll do fun science, teach each other a whole heap of shit - hey, there’s a couple of astrophysicists coming over to play at some point too, we’ll be, like, multi-disciplinary, it’ll be awesome.” He frowned suddenly. “Can you fly?”

Loki shook his head.

“Hmm. OK, well, let’s get the jet, I guess. C’mon, Frosty, let’s head down the mountain, Happy’ll be able to land on that plateau down there, but don’t tell Nick Fury or he’ll want one too. Oh, hey! What’s your name?”

Loki blinked and followed Stark, who was still talking, out of the cave. After all, he appeared to belong to him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Tony is a very excited bean


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pure self-indulgence, me just writing hyperactive Tony because he's so CUTE when he's nerding out! I promise he'll realise his faux pas next chapter, after they've both had some sleep!
> 
> Also if anyone notices any physics mistakes please let me know! I'm a biologist, and although I find quantum and particle physics amazing and awesome and The Best Thing, I definitely don't fully understand it lol!

Tony wanted to dive straight down into the lab for a marathon session of alien research. He couldn’t wait to find out what Loki could do! But it became clear on the jet that the alien was exhausted. He lowered himself into the seats, his head hanging low between his shoulders and his hands curled palm upwards on his lap. 

Tony shut his mouth and waited, just breathed for a moment. What would Pepper have liked in a situation like this? “So, uh, what kind of food do you like to eat? Like, vegetables, fish, meat? We can have food delivered, and then… eh, I guess we can sleep for a few hours before getting started on the whole science thing.”

Loki’s head shot up and he looked at Tony like a starving man in front of a banquet. “You are sure? You don’t… I can handle some experiments.”

He visibly struggled to sit straight up in his seat and Tony nodded to himself. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Smurfette, you’re going straight to bed as soon as you’ve had enough to eat. Now, is there anything you’re allergic to?” He frowned to himself. “Not that you guys probably have the same food. Hey, how come you speak English?”

“I speak the Allspeak,” he said. “It translates to all languages simultaneously, and I hear your voice in my own language.”

Tony leaned forwards, perching right on the edge of his seat. “No way, how does that work? Is there, like, a neural implant? Will it screw it up if I put you in an MRI machine? Uh, magnetic resonance imaging machine? Does that...”

Loki narrowed his eyes at him. “What are you planning to resonate with these magnets?”

“Oooh, our first instance of culture shock, awesome. OK, magnetic resonance imaging uses the alignment and misalignment of protons - a magnet lines up all the protons in the hydrogen atoms in your water molecules, and then a radio pulse knocks them out of alignment. As soon as you turn the radio waves off, the protons go back into line, in the process emitting pulses of radio waves themselves. Protons in molecules found in different tissues return to alignment at different speeds, so we can detect what tissues are found where.”

Loki rubbed his eye and frowned. “Sounds like the same sort of principle as electron excitation at different quanta of energy,” he mumbled.

Tony’s mouth fell open. “Uh… yeah, I guess. Oh my God, yeah, it’s… analogous, the leaping up a level and then returning, giving out a certain package of energy in the process. You know quantum physics?”

Loki shrugged. “It forms the basis of a lot of my magic,” he said around a yawn.

“Oh. Oh my God. I love you even more now, magic is actually science, you are my favourite alien. I mean, you’re the only alien I know, but you’re my favourite. Shit, you’re really tired. OK, I’m gonna nerd out tomorrow, no more nerding tonight. Tonight, we eat like princes, I’m feeling sushi, you like sushi? Let’s get sushi.”

Sushi turned out to be a winner. Loki was slow to start eating, not willing to try anything until Tony had eaten some first, but it was clear from the way his eyes fluttered shut as he bit through a salmon nigiri that fish and rice was the way to go.

Tony caught himself staring and twitched his attention away quickly, shaking his head. It wouldn’t do to get caught ogling his new alien buddy, humans found that awkward enough, who knew how insulted aliens would get. But Loki was just so pretty, with his royal blue skin, all marked with raised scarification, a pair of curved horns rising from his jet black hair.

Tony smirked to himself and nabbed another roll. The Westboro Baptist Church had been saying he’d sleep with the devil given half a chance, they’d feel so totally vindicated if they could see him making eyes at a blue horned alien right now.

Loki tried to suppress another yawn and Tony nearly smacked himself in the face. “Right, c’mon, sleepy times for Stitch.” He led Loki down the corridor to one of the impersonal guest rooms, flicking on the light. “It’s not much,” he said, grimacing. “I’ll get something more personalised as soon as I know you a bit better, but yeah, visiting diplomats don’t seem to mind boring white rooms and Pepper won’t let me put something interesting in each one like Black Sabbath posters or a Disney Princess bedspread. I think it would be cool, you know? Like, a conversation starter. But nah, she said it could start a diplomatic incident.” He frowned into the air. “I mean, honestly, when was the last time I had visiting diplomats? I should do it anyway. JARVIS, open up a new tab, we’re gonna redecorate.”

He started wandering out of the room, his head in calculations of how many crazy themes he could work on, then stopped and reversed. “Uh, sorry. Night, Lokes.”

“Goodnight, Master Stark.”

“Oh god, it’s Tony, please. I _beg_ you.”

“I meant no offence,” he said, bowing stiffly.

“None taken, Bluebird of Happiness. Sleep well now - ‘night!”

As Loki’s door closed behind him, Tony stood still just outside it. Then he jumped up and down and punched the air. “Holy _shit_ , JARVIS, did I just make first contact? I fucking _did_ , suck it, world! I made friends with an alien! How fucking cool is that?” He bit his lip. “And he’s _hot!”_

He was in the elevator by now, still bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. JARVIS sounded distinctly eye-roll-y when he replied. “Sir, might I suggest not flirting with the alien just yet? You don’t know how it would be received culturally.”

“I’m willing to be Kirk to his Spock any day,” Tony smirked.

“I’m well aware of your personal fantasies, Sir,” JARVIS said dryly. “But if you insist on initiating more personal relations in the name of intergalactic harmony, might I recommend some sleep and a shower?”

Tony whined, but he knew JARVIS was right. He hadn’t slept for going on thirty hours, and he still had grease in his hair from the last project. Even if his decision making didn’t usually improve with sleep, he could at least make his breath smell better.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a bad morning, but on the plus side, now Tony is well rested, he's able to recognise some accidental culture clash and resolve their awful misunderstanding!

Loki woke with a jolt, his heart pounding, nightmares of a frozen world and evil red eyes lingering in the fringes of his mind. He lifted trembling hands to cover his face, and nearly screamed.

He stumbled out of bed, his heart thumping, trying to get _away_ from the vicious black claws, the blue skin that had haunted his nightmares since his childhood. He scratched at his arm, tore at the pale lines raised in the skin, whimpering and panicking, the quiet, calm voice inside now drowned out by the storm, and he couldn’t find himself, couldn’t dig himself out from under this hellish mask, this curse, this…

“Hey! Hey, Loki, please, calm, will you? Hey, look at me? I’m not going to touch you, alright? I just want you to look at the lights, can you do that? Can you breathe in with the light as it gets brighter? That’s great, keep going… OK, and now out. Like you’re whistling, purse your lips, yeah, just like that. Now in, feel it… feel it filling you up or… yeah, this is good. That’s great, buddy. OK, I’m just gonna… can I see your arms?” 

Stark came closer, still holding his hands out in front of him and looking as unthreatening as possible. Logically Loki could see that he was _very_ unthreatening, a small mortal in soft clothing, hair still sleep-mussed and face pillow-creased, but with his heart still hammering inside his own chest, he couldn’t handle logic at all. He tugged his arms closer to himself, fingers slick with his own blood.

Then he looked down. The blood was indigo. He whimpered and pushed his arms out as far from himself as he could, staggering backwards, his breathing speeding up again.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK! I’ll get them fixed up, no worries.” Stark cupped his hands around Loki’s wrists, making a surprised hum. “Wow, you’re cold.”

Loki let out a burst of hysterical laughter that very nearly turned into a sob. How utterly pathetic. To have been reduced to a scared child, cowering in someone else’s room, terrified of his own appearance after a nightmare… Loki turned his face and closed his eyes. It was almost unbearable.

Stark tugged him gently over to the bed, encouraging him to sit. He left him there, staring down helplessly, hatefully, at his blue, bleeding arms. “Here we go,” Stark said a moment later, setting a bowl of water down by Loki’s feet. He took Loki’s wrist in his hand and started dabbing the blood away, staining the water an inky blue. Loki stared at the colour diffusing through the water and tried not to despair.

“There we go,” Stark said with a grin. Loki looked at his forearms, wrapped in pristine white bandages. He felt emptied out, like his heart had been excavated from his chest, leaving him dull and hollow. Stark’s smile slowly slipped from his face and he bit his lip. “Ah, do you… do you want to talk a bit?”

Loki blinked at him.

“Like, uh… do you maybe want to… were you trying to, um. Were you _trying_ to hurt yourself? Is this, like, a self-harm thing? Because I won’t judge, I just…” He scruffed his hair. “Yeah, I’m not very good at this shit. Are you… OK?” He winced and looked at Loki sideways, almost as if he thought Loki would strike him for his question.

“No, Stark,” said Loki, his voice sounding very distant. “I am not OK.”

“Yeah, I kinda… got that.” Stark sat on his haunches and rubbed his face. “You know what? We need a load of breakfast. I’m thinking pastries and donuts, something that won’t go cold or soggy, and then I think you should tell me all about it. I mean, I can’t promise I’ll be any help.” He winced again. “Honestly, I’ll probably be shit. Like, worse than nothing. I’m not… the best listener. Or the best friend. But…” he shrugged and looked away like he didn’t care at all. “Yeah, croissants! JARVIS, could you order us, eh, I dunno, one of everything from Belle Maison?”

“Of course, Sir,” JARVIS replied. 

Loki looked up in the direction of the voice. He had been introduced to JARVIS the night before, but this morning, after a night of somewhat effective sleep, he could cling to the fascination sparking in his chest, distract himself. “Is your companion made of magic?” he asked. 

“What, JARV? Nah - or, well, he’s an AI - artificial intelligence. He’s made out of computer code and electronics and… stuff.”

“I blush, Sir,” said JARVIS dryly.

Stark just smirked. “I’ll show you the bots in a minute, it might make a bit more sense then. Assuming you’re still up for a bit of research in a while?”

Loki felt the cold flood through his system once more, ridiculous for a Frost Giant. He had forgotten during Stark’s treatment of him this morning that he was little more than a prisoner here. He was Stark’s research project, and nothing more - this had not been kindness, but a care for one’s tools. Loki summoned up a professional mask and nodded.

Stark blinked, his own smile faltering. “OK… OK, if you’re sure? Anyway. For now, do you want a coffee or something? I need coffee, I’m not human without the first one of the morning.”

Loki narrowed his eyes at him. “Hyperbole?” he asked.

Stark winked at him. “Only just. C’mon, Billy Goat Gruff, let me hook you up with the good stuff.”

Loki had hoped that the distraction of breakfast and coffee would make Stark forget his demand that they talk, but once they’d eaten a couple of the sweet treats, he tapped his fingernails on the polished stone of the high table he called a breakfast bar. “So, Loki-Doki, you wanna tell me your story? How did you end up in a crater on another planet causing snow in the desert?”

Loki closed his eyes for just a moment, put his pastry down on the plate and clenched his hands into fists under the table. “As you wish,” he said, his voice strained.

Stark frowned. “Hey, no, it’s fine if you don’t wanna tell me, you know? I just… thought it might…” He scrubbed his hair again. “I dunno, help? People are always asking me if I want to talk, I just thought it was the done thing, or something. You don’t have to.”

“No, I am yours to command.”

Stark made a face. “Not really, though.” His eyes suddenly widened. “Holy shit. Holy… did I say something? Was there a culture clash here? Have I like… I didn’t sign you up to be my indentured servant or some bullshit, did I?”

Loki peered up at him, surprised at himself that his head had ducked so low, that his shoulders were so hunched over. “You said you would give me sanctuary in exchange for experiments…”

“I did?”

“You did imply something along those lines, Sir,” JARVIS interjected. 

Stark pressed his hands to his cheeks. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me, JARV?”

“I didn’t realise that Master Loki would take the combination of words in such a literal way. My apologies, Sir. And to Master Loki.”

Loki frowned. “You did not… but why would you take me in if not to-”

“I mean, sure, I wanted to study you,” Stark wailed. “But only if you wanted to find stuff out too, or like, show off… I don’t want you to be here against your will, holy _shit_ , have I kidnapped you? Oh my god, I’m so sorry, shit!”

Loki blinked, shocked. Stark was apologising? To him? And in such distress! But Loki was nothing to him, here he was not even a prince, why would Stark care about whether or not Loki would choose to be with him? “I don’t… you do not have to…”

“I mean, I thought we were just gonna do some cool science together, I had no idea I was dragging you here like some sort of a threat, am I SHIELD in this situation? Oh my god, I’m basically Agent, guh, I’m gonna be sick, JARVIS!” He turned to Loki with wild eyes. “I am really, really sorry.”

Loki stared at him. There was a warmth in his chest, a spreading feeling he barely recognised. When was the last time someone had apologised to him? Someone of consequence, not a servant or a subject - and even then, they would always do so with gritted teeth. Loki knew he was unpopular. He’d never attempted to change that - it had always seemed so immutable a fact. Loki the trickster, don’t trust him, don’t listen, don’t spend any time near him in case he turns you into a goat.

“I would… I would like to stay,” he said, and he tried to hide a wince at how vulnerable his voice sounded. “I am interested in your science. In our differences.”

“Really?” Stark said, freezing in his distressed motions. “Are you sure, though? You’re not just saying that because I’ve, like, activated some hospitality clause I didn’t know about? You’re choosing to--”

“I am choosing, freely,” he said, swallowing and looking up at Stark. “If I am welcome, still?”

Stark’s face broke into a wide grin. “Hell, yeah, you’re welcome!” He let out a long breath. “Phew, god, that was awful!”

Loki’s lip quirked up. “Why was it so awful?”

“Well, I don’t know what life’s like on your planet or whatever, but we humans don’t like coercing other people.” He made a face. “Well, the non-assholes don’t. Yeah, actually, scrap that? _I_ don’t like coercing people. I can’t talk for the rest of them.”

Loki grinned. “Your realm is not so different from mine, in that case. It sounds as if there are plenty of assholes in both.”

“I mean, honestly, I probably count as one of the assholes most of the time.” Tony shrugged. “Hey, do you want to go down to the lab now? I can show you the bots, and we can find out what your alien biology looks like on my holos.”

And just like that, Loki was reminded what he was, his freakish blue skin, the horns, the demonic red of his eyes. He held himself still, trying not to wince, trying not to react, for how could he explain _this?_ He would just have to control his expressions, focus on the science. Because perhaps there would be something in Stark’s ‘lab’ which would help him to find his way back to his old - no, his _true_ form. 

But Stark stopped mid-sentence. “No? What? What is it? We won’t do anything you don’t want to,” he said, biting his bottom lip again.

Had he always been this obvious? No-one in Asgard would ever have noticed, but Stark had spotted his reticence at once - and Loki had been actively trying to hide it. Had his masks ever been as strong as he had believed? Or had nobody ever been truly looking? Loki stared at Stark, amazed at the perceptiveness of this small, sparkling mortal. “It’s…”

“I’m serious, Loki, we won’t do anything you don’t want to, OK?” Stark said, holding his gaze. “If there’s anything you don’t like, we’ll stop, no matter how far through the process we are, if there’s anything you don’t even like the look of, we won’t do it. And of course, I’ll put myself through everything you do - like, except for actually doing magic, ‘cause I can’t. Oh, and I can’t go into an MRI because of this,” he added, tapping the centre of his chest over the odd glow. “But you don’t have to do that either.”

Loki searched his face for any hint of a trick, any lie, and found only compassion. He swallowed hard. “I do not look like this,” he said, his voice nothing more than a croak. “I mean… not usually.” He looked down at his hands, clenching them into fists and feeling the sharp, obsidian nails digging into his skin. “I was Aesir - I _am_ Aesir. I _must_ be. But… during my brother’s coronation, I just… this happened. I turned into this… this monster, and now… now my magic is different, cold…” he took a deep, shuddering breath, the fear sending icy tendrils through every nerve. He looked at the table and gasped. Frost swirled out from every contact point with his skin, and he jerked his hands back in horror.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK,” Stark said, holding his hands out, placating the beast once more. “It’s OK.” He took a deep breath. “Hey, I know we said we didn’t have to talk, but do you want to tell me about it? And then… maybe we can get you back to normal?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter's so short you guys (and also late)! I have a companion chapter which is from Loki's POV, but it feels wrong to put them together in one chapter. I think I'm going to try and speed up my uploads though, so I should be able to get them up every 5 days or so rather than every week. However, I'm also SO FREAKING BEHIND on my comments ;_; I'm so sorry, they're all so lovely and I haven't even answered ones from like 13 days ago aaaaahhh! I promise I'll reply to everyone and I appreciate everyone's kind words SO SO MUCH <3 I hope you enjoy this fluffy chapter of Tony pining!

Tony was elated to get Loki down into the labs, bouncing around and introducing him to the bots, showing him how basic circuitry worked, bringing up his holoviewers and practically hyperventilating about being able to learn new stuff. After the emotional intensity of Loki’s story, which had just broken Tony’s heart, this was exactly what they both needed. Something, some project, to get rid of all those rogue _feelings_. Just science them all away.

And the best thing about it was that Loki was _smart_. Tony was quickly beginning to work out that Loki was smart on Tony’s own level, and because of his incredible lifespan, he was smart about _so many things_. Like, for example, he may have the Allspeak, but he also spoke several different languages for no other reason than that he’d been bored one day and thought he’d like to revive some ancient texts and be the only person who understood a language. That way he could write secret notes to himself, and maybe, in the very far distant future, fool archaeologists about the resurgence of a language in a very localised area. That was the kind of nerdy trickery that made Tony weak at the knees.

Now that they’d got the horrible misunderstanding out of the way, Loki was quick to contribute to ideas, quick to find things interesting, quick to ask questions and explain more about his own research back home in Asgard. 

As promised, Tony invited Jane and Erik (and Darcy too, of course) to come and play science, and the four of them together spent over 48 hours straight sitting up and discussing astrophysics. Darcy appropriated Tony’s lab sofa after about twelve of those hours, and then spent the next day shopping with Pepper. It was glorious. After the New Mexico lot went home, he and Loki slept for 15 hours straight, and then went straight back to the lab, and they’d been spending every day there since.

The trouble was, Loki still flinched when he caught sight of his own reflection. Even his own hands. There were times when he was in the middle of a complex diatribe about something brilliant which was making supernovas go off in Tony’s brain, and he’d falter and stop for just a second before trying to pick up the thread. Tony would turn to see where his eye had gone in that moment, and always, always see some reflective surface behind them.

It was breaking his heart. Because Loki was objectively _beautiful_. He was tall and so muscular that Tony’s mouth watered when Loki wore a tight fitting shirt one day (with many complaints about how ill-fitting and strange mortal clothing was. Tony might have just hummed and nodded without really registering the words themselves). His cheekbones were made to cut glass, his long fingers were… OK, down that route lay some really inappropriate thoughts and Tony was not going to start perving over his new alien buddy.

Only, he was totally perving over his new alien buddy. Because Loki had skin like the blues you get in a nebula, with nearly white on his scar-like markings right down to the almost-black of his horns. And yes, he had _horns_. He had arching, coiled, ram-like horns rising from his hair. Soft, silky black hair, and Tony knew it was soft and silky because he’d forgotten himself one day and brushed it back behind his ear when it was spilling over his face that day he’d taught Loki how to solder a circuit. 

Tony took a deep breath and turned back to the programme he was designing, the one which should be able to visualise magic. He was torn between telling Loki all this just to get him to stop hating his skin, and keeping it buried deep, deep down where it wasn’t in danger of losing him the best science buddy he’d ever made.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you thought Tony was the only one pining... here, have some melodramatic pining sad Loki as well!

“That’s it,” Tony said, stepping back from the fabricator. “That’s all we can do for now, we just have to wait for JARVIS to finish fabricating the imaging machine, and then we can start looking at your magic.”

Loki grimaced. “My magic such as it is.” He held up a hand and concentrated on the channels just one more time, trying to create a magelight, the most basic of skills. Nothing happened, until in his frustration, frost started to form over the chair on which his other hand rested. He pushed it away in disgust.

Tony traced the patterns. “I know this wasn’t what you’re going for, but I still think it’s awesome. But for now, let’s go upstairs and watch a movie, order pizza in, how about that?” He patted Loki’s shoulder, and Loki resisted the urge to lean into that touch, because he was not a pathetic, touch starved wretch.

Only perhaps he was, he thought, as he followed Tony into the elevator and up to the film room, listening to him chat non-stop, a fond smile fighting its way onto his lips. Or perhaps he was Tony-starved. For the gentle, simple affection that Tony handed out at every opportunity. For the bright, joyful smiles that accompanied success, and the swear words when he failed, for the mental leaps and the sparking of intellect, ideas linking across a void that no other would consider crossing. 

He had not known it could _be_ like this, that friendship, that _people_ could be so wonderful. He had never wanted to be with anyone so much as he wanted to be with Tony, every moment of the day.

He rubbed his sternum over the top of the thin cotton fabric that Tony had bought for him when he first arrived weeks ago. Tony was generous, affectionate, kind, fantastically intelligent - and not even just _for a mortal_ , but for any being. He was also the most beautiful sight Loki had ever seen. 

He was nothing like the men and women Loki had been attracted to before - he was honestly nothing like any men on Asgard. He was small, his head would have fitted perfectly beneath Loki’s chin should they embrace as lovers. His hair, dark brown and silvering at the temples, was coarser than his own, holding its shape when Tony ran his fingers through it, spiking it up in all directions, making Loki long to smooth it down, or even mess it up himself. His eyes were a deep, rich brown that invited Loki to stare into them, to lose himself, to test the limits of their gentle acceptance. 

And his hands… Loki could watch him work all day if given the chance, watch the powerful muscles tense and bunch under the short sleeved vests he wore in the lab, in contrast to Loki’s need to cover himself. His arms were sinewy and brown, pocked with small welding scars, and scars from many other terrible things as well. But his hands! Loki could be satisfied for a lifetime just watching the nimble fingers coax life out of electronics and breathe magic into circuitry. 

Once, Tony had brushed his calloused fingers through Loki’s hair, pushing it back behind his ear, and Loki had almost whimpered from the perfection, the need he’d felt to press his cheek closer to Tony’s palm, press kisses, breathe wonder and gratitude and… and maybe something more into his skin, fall to his knees and beg him to accept him.

But that was just it, wasn’t it? Loki was… unacceptable. Loki was a Frost Giant. He told Tony - tried to convince himself - that it was a mistake, that he just needed to find himself a cure, and he’d be back in his own body, his true, Aesir body. But he was beginning to realise that it was never going to happen. This body… this hated, hated flesh, it fit him. And Loki wanted to weep with it, to howl and break everything around him, because it felt so right. While his heart rebelled, recoiled at the disgusting blue skin, his very blood and guts knew it to be true.

Loki was a Frost Giant. And that meant that he was lucky to have anyone willing to be in the same room as him, let alone Tony’s kindness, his wonderful friendship. The thought of demanding more of Tony, pushing him beyond the limits of his generosity, beyond the limits of his ability to look past his hideousness, was terrifying.

Sometimes he woke from dreams of his body pressed against Tony, arms wrapped around his back, or kisses pressed to his neck, tilting his chin to feel the beautiful tendons there against his lips. Sometimes he imagined fingers intertwined, imagined stroking through his hair, tracing the line of his beard with one fingertip, touching Tony’s lips, or the delicate skin of his eyelids, while Tony tilted his face up in trust.

And then he remembered that his fingers were blue and cold, and tipped with knife-sharp, metal-strong black nails. And he dug those nails into the palms of his hated hands, because they were not made for touching something so precious as Tony Stark’s perfect face.

“Lokes? You OK?” Tony asked, looking over at him.

He blinked up at him and dropped his hands to his side, flickering a half smile. “I am.”

Tony cocked his head on one side, a sadness drifting across his face. “OK. Hey, uh… I had an idea, I don’t know if you’d be up for it, but… you know I fell asleep on you the last time?”

How could he forget? A smile grew over his lips unbidden. “I remember waking you up because you were shivering from the cold,” Loki said.

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, so… hence this.” He held up a blanket, raising his eyebrows. “Do you think you’d be OK with me sticking a blanket around you so I can lean on you? I mean… it’s… heh, it’s kinda dumb, never mind, I’m not good with boundaries, sorry, it’s--”

“An excellent idea.” Loki took it and draped it over his shoulders, his heart thundering. Tony’s face lit up in a smile and he practically jumped onto the sofa next to Loki, snuggling right up to his shoulder. Loki’s breath almost stopped. This was… this was so much. This was so close, so perfect. He closed his eyes in the beautiful, wonderful pain of having him so close. He could turn his face just the tiniest bit to the left and it would be pressed into Tony’s hair. He could smell the warm, engine oil, work-sweat, aftershave scent of him and it seemed to work into his lungs and spread meltwater through his every vein. This would be the death of him, and he would be glad of it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Tony investigate magic...

The machine was a hit. It took them a while to get some of the bugs written out of it, and there were some frustrating days where it burnt out in the same damn place three times in a row, but Loki was the one to figure out where two logic gates directly contradicted each other, and within hours they were back in the game. 

They took some baseline readings with Tony messing about in the imaging area, doing some different things like reading or a rubik’s cube, and trying to juggle. They were both surprised when the results came out. They’d been expecting nothing beyond the usual image of Tony doing his thing, but it seemed like magic, as described by Loki, was present in everyday human things too. 

The arc reactor seemed to appear as a black patch, not appearing on any images at all, just blanked out, which was fascinating in itself. But Tony had always known there was something special about it. What was really incredible was the regular stuff. In the footage of Tony reading, faint swirls of gold curled around his forehead and eyes, and around the book itself too. 

“Incredible,” murmured Loki. “You say this is just a story, not a grimoire?”

“It’s just… it’s Anansi Boys, it’s not even like… oh my god, imagine what the Lord of the Rings would look like! I wonder if it would look different if it was a book that didn’t have any magic in it at all, if it’d produce as much magic? Hah!” he turned to Loki, bubbling with glee. “We’ve just proven what every book lover already knows, that books are magic. Stories are freaking magic! Not even the old ones, that’s a brand new copy! My last one fell apart.”

Loki looked at the screen in wonder, his red eyes gleaming like rubies in the harsh light, and Tony had to press the adoration down. He knew how much Loki loved books, this was just… for people like Loki and Pepper, who had found their sanctuary in worlds of paper and ink as children, this was something beyond what Tony could ever have predicted.

Loki clicked onto the next video file, a smile still curling his lip, and Tony cleared his throat and turned back to the screen.

There was magic in a human brain, it seemed. There was magic in what humans created, and so much more magic in the bots than Tony had been prepared to admit he’d been hoping for. He covered his mouth when U wheeled on to hand Tony a dropped juggling ball, a sparking, diffuse golden glow around every movement. 

Loki smiled at him. “I did ask, did I not, whether you made your companion of magic?”

Tony nodded and looked down at the keyboard, trying to keep his emotions in check and not let the ache in the back of his throat humiliate him. Loki’s hand tentatively brushed his back between his shoulder blades, and he fought the urge to turn into him, press his face into Loki’s chest and cry, because his bots were _magic._

He sniffed. “Uh, OK, it’s your turn now, Tim the Enchanter. Hop in there and let’s have a look at your magic, huh?”

Loki took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself. He walked stiffly to the centre of the imaging area, and they began.

Loki tried every spell he could think of, verbally, eyes shut, meditating first, with both hands outstretched, but nothing worked. Tony watched the footage on the screen, biting his lip, but beyond the same swirling that surrounded Tony when he was reading or juggling or concentrating in some way, there was nothing sparking up.

“This is ridiculous,” Loki snarled clenching his hands. “It is this form, I have _nothing_ when I am like this. My magic is gone.”

“Hey, look, no, don’t give up. I bet we can find something--”

“Stark, enough!” he snapped, and flung out his hand in a sharp gesture. Ice flew from his palm, shattering on the desk behind which Tony had dropped.

“Woah,” Tony said, sitting up.

“Tony, I am so sorry,” Loki said, covering his face in abject horror. “I cannot, oh, Norns,I didn’t mean to… I would never--”

“Holy shit, Lokes, look at this!” Tony said, breaking through Loki’s stammered apologies. Because on the screen the footage of Loki firing ice across the room was looping, and it was glorious. “Slow it down, JARV,” Tony said as Loki came to stand behind him, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

The golden light started at the base of Loki’s back, geometric frost patterns and hexagons and snowflake shapes fluttering out from his sacrum. As they rose to his shoulder and along his arm they burst from his skin, like a flurry of snow, a blizzard around his hand, and then a bright explosion of fractals curling away from his outstretched hand, sparkling off the ice flakes, painting themselves along the desk and glowing there for a second longer even as the shards of ice fell to the floor.

“Woah,” breathed Tony. “That was…” He turned to look at Loki, who was staring at the looping clip, his mouth open. “Wow.”

Loki shook himself, blinking hard. “I know what to do,” he said softly. He walked back to the centre of the imaging area and held out his hand. “I know what to do,” he repeated, his voice stronger, gleeful. “My magic is visual. I have to imagine it, and I do so by thinking of…” he hesitated and glanced up at Tony, embarrassed for some reason that Tony couldn’t work out. “Uh, of lightning. Running along my hands and doing my bidding. But now…” He took a deep breath and glanced back towards the looping video, then held out his hand. Tony scrambled to start a new recording, just in time to see the glowing magic start at the base of Loki’s spine, then travel upwards and into his hand, forming a blue, glittering light.

Loki let out a sharp breath, like he’d been punched, and laughed. “It worked! It is no longer green, as it always was, but it works!”

Tony raced out to see it, reaching out to touch the ball of pure energy held in Loki’s hand. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

The light stuttered and disappeared, and Tony looked up, disappointed. Loki turned, his shoulders hunched, and walked over to check the footage. “I shall have to practice,” he said, his voice strained, and Tony bit his lip. What had he fucked up this time? “It was hard to hold onto the magelight,” Loki continued. “It may be that I shall have to practice each of my spells with the new visualisation before they are back to where they should be.”

“And then maybe you can break your curse,” said Tony, but it only made him frown. Because once Loki broke the spell on himself, he would be leaving, going back to his own home. Of course.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds the spell to give him back his Aesir appearance...

It was bothering Loki how quickly every spell came back to him, how much power he seemed to have when using his magic in this form. Once he found the right visualisation, the spells clicked into place and seemed to work so much better than ever before.

Tony encouraged him to try new things as well, things specific to his new ice powers. He froze live plants and defrosted them without any ill effect, created vast, complex shapes out of clear sheet ice, and sent a tiny snowstorm following Butterfingers around. Jane came to visit again as well, fresh from presenting her research to Culver, and she and Tony started talking about global warming and polar regeneration. Loki watched Tony talking to Jane with such passion, and he _wanted_. And then had to quickly move his hands away from the table because his magic, newly freed and as mischievous as ever, was etching frozen heart shapes into the marble.

And then he found _the_ spell. The one that would bring his Aesir skin back to him, which would banish the Frost Giant cold for as long as he decided, and it would be under _his_ control this time, not his f-- not Odin’s. He stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom and watched his skin fade to white, his eyes to green, and nearly wept.

He had a chance like this. He reached out and touched the mirror over the image of his pale face. There was the slightest chance, now that he looked _normal_ , that Tony might look on him favourably, as maybe… maybe something more than a friend. Who cared that his magic squirmed uncomfortably beneath his skin, that he felt too warm, that his forehead throbbed. It was all something he could cope with, and it was all worth it.

He walked slowly out to the kitchen. Tony was draining pasta, whistling something merry. 

“Tony,” Loki said quietly.

Tony turned and froze, his face entirely blank. “You…”

Loki laughed awkwardly. “Do you not recognise me?”

“What? No, of course I do, I just… you did it.”

Loki cleared his throat. “Yes.” He spread his hands. “This is what I usually look like.”

Tony put the saucepan down carefully. “So… I guess you’ll be going home, then.”

Loki blinked. “I don’t… I suppose so.”

Tony sighed and leaned into the table. “That’s awesome, Lokes. I’m really happy for you.” He rubbed his forehead. “Uh… can I maybe… convince you to stay for dinner?”

Loki felt a rush of hope, of maybe comprehension. “Tony… I do not know if I can go home. I have no way of my own, and the Bifrost has not been sent for me, though the Gateman must know where I am. If I may… would I be able to impose on your hospitality a while longer?”

Tony looked up again with a wide, sudden grin. “Are you... Really? Oh, man, I thought this meant you’d be going home, like, straight away.” He laughed. “I was thinking I’d have to throw away half this food!”

Loki laughed and moved to stand on the other side of the table. “I’m sorry, Tony, I never meant to make you concerned about food wastage. I know it is a subject close to your heart.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “So, this is how you usually look, huh?”

Loki nodded, his heart pounding. “What do you think?” he asked, spreading his arms.

“Looks like… you. You know, just with white skin instead of blue. And the horns are missing,” he said, pointing. “And your eyes are green.” He shrugged. “Everything else is pretty much the same, though.”

Loki’s heart sank. So Tony would not be interested in this version of him, either, it seemed. He forced himself to straighten up and help Tony carry the pasta to the table. It was not to be wondered at, he thought. After all, he was not the most attractive of people in his Aesir guise, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the short chapter - we're getting so close to the end now and I'm STILL utterly rubbish at replying to all your wonderful, WONDERFUL messages - thank you so much, and I promise I will reply... rl is a bit hectic but I'm getting better at time management! And I'm SO EXCITED for next chapter you have no idea!!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony tells Loki what he really thinks of his Jotun form. Loki can't cope.

Loki took solace in the fact that he was still here with Tony, that he didn’t have to flinch every time he caught sight of himself in any reflective surfaces, he was finally back in the body he had worn his entire life.

But he had to admit, as they compared his Aesir form with the Jotun, that it had been a mask to wear, and one that fitted ill. After a month of living in his Frost Giant skin, slowly becoming accustomed to it and not startling every time he saw blue, after a week of finding his true magic, this body now felt like a poorly made shoe. He ached in odd joints, old pains that he remembered flaring up every so often his whole life, but which had been entirely absent during his time as a Jotun. He tired much more easily, compared to his marathon science sessions over the past few weeks, and he felt unbearably stuffy and hot some days.

But Tony didn’t have to use the blankets to lean against him on the sofa any more. And his eyes were no longer a freakish red. Surely that was worth the sluggishness of his magic? He had lived with it for so long, surely he could go back to that?

And then, one day, after eight long hours of testing the interface of magic and AI, Loki, exhausted, had slipped back into his Jotun form. The first he knew of it had been Tony’s exclamation as he stared at the magic imager. “Hey! It’s back!”

Loki looked down at his hands and dropped the circuit board. His hands were blue again. He quickly dug deep and tried to heave his Aesir form back up and over himself again, but it would not come.

Tony poked his head around. “What ha-- oh, woah! You’re blue again. I just noticed the patterns were back in your magic and I… oh, Loki, no, it’s ok! Don’t worry, it’s OK, I’m sure it’s just… what is it?”

He rushed over to Loki and held his shoulders as Loki shrank into himself, turning his face away. Surely by now Tony had got used to his rightful Aesir form, he would be disgusted at Loki’s red eyes and _ugh_ , the horns again.

But Tony was touching his chin, tugging his face gently back around to him. “Hey, I know you hate it. But… look, don’t take this the wrong way, OK? But I think you’re magic’s stronger when you’re blue. It’s certainly more clear, more crisp. Is there any possibility this isn’t actually a curse?”

Loki stared at him in horror - how could he have worked it out? But Tony was still squeezing his arms gently, comfortingly. 

“How can you say that?” Loki croaked. “I am… this face, this… this form. It’s horrific!”

Tony laughed. “It’s anything but! Look… come here, please, just… trust me, OK?” He tugged Loki over to the glass walls of the lab. “JARVIS, mirror them, would you please?”

Loki turned his face, squeezing his eyes shut, hunching his shoulders, just to get _away_ from the awful sight he made. But Tony shushed. “C’mon, Lokes. Look at yourself for a minute, will you? Look: this blue? That’s incredible, you know? That’s like, the bluest blue there is, and it’s _all over_ you. You’re entirely royal blue. Except for these bits.” He ran his finger up one of the pale lines on Loki’s forearm, and Loki gasped. “Sorry. Tickles, huh? These are just… fascinating. I love the feel of them - I love the feel of your skin. It’s ice-cube cold, but dry and soft and just… and your lips are black. Your gums, your nails, your horns. Your horns are damn cool, by the way, just saying, they’re kickass. Your eyes are black around the edges, it’s like you’ve got _eyeliner_ on and… wow. Look at your eyes, Loki, they’re so cool! They’re all red, but it’s like, there’s a different shade over your iris.” 

He had his fingers resting on Loki’s cheekbone as he described Loki to himself, his eyes darting over his face, cataloguing all the sins against nature that Loki despised, but Tony… Tony seemed to find nothing wrong with them. His fingers ran up to slide through Loki’s hair, brushing at the base of Loki’s horns, and he found his eyes fluttering shut at the sensation, leaning into it desperately.

“You’re so beautiful, Loki,” said Tony softly.

With a whimper Loki pressed forwards, one hand curling around Tony’s waist, the other cupping his chin, tilting it up and _kissing_ him, pushing all his love forward into him. Tony gasped, his mouth falling open in response and Loki brushed his tongue over the row of his teeth, groaning at the feel of warmth, of _Tony_ , of _oh Norns._

_What have I done?_

He threw himself backwards, one hand pushing outwards involuntarily. How could he? How could he do this to Tony? How could he steal a kiss from him, and when he was being so kind? How could he… he had just ruined everything, what had he been _thinking?_

And then he turned, and fell to his knees, because in his panic, he had frozen Tony Stark.

***

It felt like a hellish lifetime that he had knelt there before the frozen statue of the man he adored, nothing more than a screaming in his ears. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t bear to live with himself, just curled in on himself and screamed.

No matter what happened, this was the end of the comfort he had found with Tony, the end of their friendship. He had pushed so far past the limits of even Tony’s incredible kindness, frozen not only him, but his entire lab, frost blossoming out from him in streaks across the floor.

It was a long time before he could raise his head, before he could stand in front of Tony. He brushed the backs of his fingertips against Tony’s cheek, the ice sleek against his skin. “I’m so sorry, Tony,” he whispered. He hoped, prayed, that the instinctive spell had been the same one he had practiced before with Tony, freezing living plants and bringing them back, but he had never… _would never_ have considered doing something so risky to a mortal. Especially not a mortal with a damaged heart.

He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. He had to hope for the best, Tony’s return to full health was the only acceptable outcome. He had no hope that he would be forgiven. What he had done was unforgivable. 

Still, before he spoke the spell, he leaned close, pressing his forehead against Tony’s one last time. “I’m sorry,” he said again. With a long, shuddering breath he released the magic, the most careful spell he had ever done. And with it, he imagined handing over the broken pieces of his frozen heart. Both in apology, and because it had belonged to Tony for some time already.

Tony gasped in air, his thawed hand falling to his side from where it had frozen up by his face. “Holy shit!”

Loki dropped to his knees once more, one hand pressed to the floor, his head low. “I cannot apologise enough, Tony. It will never--”

“We need to do that again!”

Loki’s head shot up and he stared at Tony. “What?”

Tony was breathing hard, like he’d been holding his breath, or running up a flight of stairs. “We’re doing that again,” he said softly, pulling Loki up to his feet. “The kiss, I mean,” he said, his soft brown eyes holding Loki’s and suddenly so serious. “I can do without being a statue, though, you know, I’ll do anything twice for science. But the kiss… did you mean it?”

“Did I mean it?” Loki squeaked. “Did I _mean_ to kiss the kindest, most generous, funniest and intelligent person I have ever met?”

Tony’s grin broke across his face like the sunrise. He sank his fingers into Loki’s hair, rose on his tiptoes and brushed his nose across Loki’s cheek. “Can I kiss you back this time?” he said softly.

Loki wanted to cry. He wanted to worship whatever being had put Tony Stark in his way, wanted to beg forgiveness for everything he had ever done that might take Tony away from him, but instead, he kissed him once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaahh they got there in the end haha! There's just one more chapter to go ;_; it's just a little epilogue to show you what's been happening up on Asgard during this whole story, and it's very silly and hopefully satisfying! Thank you SO SO FREAKING MUCH for all your lovely support, you guys are amazing!!!


	11. Epilogue - Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odin wakes up from his sleep and learns about the consequences of his actions...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid Tony and Loki don't appear in this chapter BUT I hope you still enjoy it! This little bit answers a few questions, like why did nobody come to find Loki? What does Thor think of this whole thing? What's going to happen in the long run?! I hope you like the answers!

Odin woke slowly, his eye blinking open and wincing at the bright lights. He was exhausted, still, even after months of sleep.

At last he became aware of a presence in the room. He must truly be weakened if he had taken so long to notice. He turned his head to see his son sitting by his side, and blinked. For Thor had never looked so furious without at least one thundercloud to accompany it.

“Son?”

“Allfather,” grunted Thor.

Odin’s eyebrows raised and he lifted himself to a sitting position. “Is there something you have to say to me?” he asked, irked at the reception.

“I could ask you the same thing, Father,” Thor said, the expression still concerningly still, his jaw still set solid. “But first, perhaps we should discuss the return of the Bifrost powers?”

Odin frowned. 

Thor sat forwards. “Were you aware that you had torn the power from the Bifrost in order to cast Loki down to Midgard from the palace itself?”

Odin narrowed his eye and thought. Everything of that last hour had been so very hazy. “I did intend for it to return once used,” he mused.

“Well, it has not,” Thor replied, sitting back. “Which made governance of the Nine Realms somewhat difficult for a new king. Although, I must admit, it prevented me from making too many foolish decisions, as Mother has made abundantly clear.” He frowned at the memory, possibly of a smack around the back of the head. 

Odin smiled. He knew that feeling well. “And how has your first experience of rule suited you?”

“It has been… difficult, without Loki,” Thor said, and Odin’s eye widened at Thor’s honesty. Or not at his honesty, because he was never the obfuscator of the family, not by a long shot. But his admittance of the fact that he needed his brother.

Ah. Loki. He had not quite thought that one through, either. What he would not give for a few hours alone… “Perhaps we could continue this later, Thor--”

“Oh, I think not, Father,” Thor said, narrowing his eyes and sitting forward. Odin blinked. With Gungnir in his hand, his feet solidly placed on the ground, Thor looked every inch the king that Odin had not quite believed he would make. “Would you like to explain to me why you hurled Loki into exile for mistakes that were not his?”

“I beg your pardon?” Odin snapped.

“I sit upon Hlidskjalf, Allfather,” Thor growled. “I may not be able to go to my brother, to bring him comfort, but I see, and I hear. And what I have heard…” He shook his head, a line forming between his eyebrows. “It has nigh broken my heart. Had you any idea what Loki thinks of himself? Did you know that he believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would kill him if I found him in his Jotun skin? Do you realise how being trapped in that body has ailed him?” Thor shook his head. “Without Tony Stark I do not believe he would have survived the experience with his heart intact.”

At that moment the great doors opened, and Frigga entered, her white and gold dress hushing along the floor. She smiled when she saw him, and kissed his forehead. “Ah, I see you are up and about, dear. Have you been catching up on your son’s good work these past months?”

“Not entirely…” Odin hedged.

“I have just been telling him about Loki’s mortal,” Thor said, smiling slowly at Odin. The smile looked… dangerously familiar.

“Ah, yes, Tony Stark,” Frigga said, clasping her hands and sitting beside Odin. “Have you told him of your decision?”

“I was just about to, Mother,” Thor said. Odin realised with a rush of fear where he recognised that smile from. Thor had picked it up from Loki. “I have decided to gift Tony Stark with one of the Apples of Idunn.”

Odin’s jaw dropped, and he turned to Frigga, but to his horror she was nodding along. “Indeed. A being who can keep Loki’s interest, who can keep him out of trouble, even when he is at his most vulnerable, is one to be treasured.”

Thor nodded sagely. “Everyone on Asgard knows that a vulnerable, scared Loki is a dangerous one. Which is why we plan to go to meet him as soon as the Bifrost is functional again.”

“That should not be so long,” Frigga said. Odin felt like he was a sort of metronome, his gaze ticking from one to the other of them on either side of him, talking over his bed as if he was of no consequence, but he could not seem to find the words to stop them. “Heimdall said that he noticed flickers of energy as soon as the Allfather started to rouse from his sleep.”

“Excellent,” said Thor, with the cheerful smile Odin knew of old. But there was something beneath it now, beyond the berserker, the foolish drinker. Thor stood and kissed Frigga on the temple, then bowed to Odin. “Father… it is truly good to see you yourself again,” he said, with one more smile, a genuine one this time.

Odin watched him leave, trying to hide the fact that he felt like the sand had shifted beneath his feet. Frigga hid a smile with her fingertips. “The apple does not fall far from the tree,” she said with a smirk.

“Is that so, my lady?” he asked. “And which tree are we talking about for this particular child?”

“I did say we should have told Loki,” she said, suddenly serious. “Odin, think about the catastrophe this could have caused. It very nearly did.”

Odin reclined on the many pillows against the headboard, and sighed. “Perhaps,” he hedged.

She twisted her lips at him. “Perhaps? Darling, had Tony Stark not found Loki, who knows what he would have done. How far he would have gone in his spiralling panic.”

Odin smiled slowly and relaxed. “But he did find him,” he said, twinkling at her. “After all, you are always telling the boys, everything I do is for a reason.”

She rolled her eyes and slapped him on the shoulder. Odin just laughed and closed his eye. Thor was a much better king than anticipated. Perhaps he could rest a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My characterisation of Odin fluctuates a lot. He is character marmite! I just let him do what suits the particular plot, and here, he needs to not be evil. He's not a good man; he's self-centred and doesn't think about anyone else's feelings, and a generally not-great father, but not actively evil. Let's just pretend nothing happened after Thor 1, shall we?! Just for this fic! 
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it! Your comments have been pure distilled love and I adore you aaaaahhh! I haven't got a plan for anything to come after this, I'm sorry! I mean, never say never, but my muse is sort of standing here shrugging and handing me X-Men plot bunnies that are literally reproducing before I can hold out my hands and take the little buggers!
> 
> EDIT 24/6/19: after a couple of commenters saying Odin got off way too lightly (you're right, he did, honestly in my experience the best way to get a narcissist off your back in the short term is to make them think they've won...) I thought maybe you'd all like a bit of a glimpse into the future I have in mind for Asgard... 
> 
> To my mind, here's what happens next. Frigga and Thor make quiet trip to Midgard. They have a bit of an argument beforehand about what Loki would really like, whether they should make a big spectacle of it, but eventually they both agree that maybe Loki's not feeling secure enough in their love for him, so they just go together and assure him that they've both missed him so much and Thor saw everything Loki's had to go through, and yes, Loki, sorry, but you have been vulnerable, and you're now just going to have to accept the hugs. They gift Tony with the apple and suggest that Loki comes home for a bit so that Thor can officially name him ambassador to the emerging power of Midgard.
> 
> Now, Odin thinks he's going to be able to sit back and make all the important decisions, because honestly, maybe Thor did OK without him while he was asleep but he's not going to be able to do it all by himself, surely! Thor isn't all that bright. He's seen cunning punished plenty enough for that. Odin will be able to retire and STILL hold all the power, with a few cleverly placed words to let everyone know who's really in charge still.
> 
> He's misjudged. The glimpse he's got of Thor's regal bearing in this chapter wasn't an anomaly, but the result of Thor's tempering. Thor's grown up very suddenly, had his own cruelty exposed in the most private and thus heartbreaking of ways. Now, Thor may be a bit of a dumb jock at times, but he does love Loki, and is blindsided by the fact that Loki doesn't realise this.
> 
> Thor isn't able to ACT. This is a totally new experience for him. He can't go and burn off his energy adventuring, not without the bifrost out of action. He can't follow Loki and DEMAND that he accept his love. ("How dare you be afraid of me?" wouldn't go down very well, but Thor doesn't realise that until his temper dies down... and then he's horrified at himself). He can't go and fight some Frost Giants and start a war. He's forced, for the first time, to understand true governance, and with Frigga at his side, it becomes clear he's actually really good at it.
> 
> And Frigga? She taught Loki all he knows... she understands power. How it moves from one person to another, and she sees her way out. She sees her son growing in a way she never dared hope, and now she begins to plan. A few hints here and there, a few clever manipulations, and the balance of power shifts the way it should; from Odin to Thor. Over the years, over the centuries, as Midgard grows in power, as new allegiances are won, she guides.
> 
> And by the time Odin realises that the most venerable council members look to Thor before they look to the old, retired king, it's too late. There are already plans to move Odin and Frigga to a quiet retirement in Alfheim, where his rest can be complete and where the burdens of policy don't exhaust him, poor man ("doesn't he look tired?") Before Odin can argue, before he realises there is something to argue, he's facing his last millenia in obscurity. There are people in the distant reaches of his (not his, not anymore) kingdom who are surprised when they hear he's still alive.
> 
> There is no way back from this. And the rising horror of his own mortality rises up upon him as he sees the times change. The formation of an inter-realm council, Asgard encouraging others to rise to her level rather than standing upon their shoulders. The peace treaty with Jotunheim, the public apologies to Svartalfheim and the memorials. The return of the Casket of Ancient Winters, Loki bowing to King Laufey, standing tall in his blue skin, his mortal husband by his side.
> 
> Odin is the past, and yet he lives. And he is trapped between the past and the future, a pitiable relic.
> 
> He is nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> I also write a sort-of-regular blog about my original novels on [Wordpress](https://lynhemphillauthor.wordpress.com/), and I talk all sorts of bollocks on Tumblr as [Gold-From-Straw](https://gold-from-straw.tumblr.com/) too! Come say hi if you like!


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